


The Irony of Branches

by Bumblie_Bee



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt Evan, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Or an attempt anyway, The Orchard, Trees, soft connor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 21:36:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20571302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumblie_Bee/pseuds/Bumblie_Bee
Summary: Evan would probably laugh at the irony if he wasn’t too busy trying to remember how to breathe.





	The Irony of Branches

**Author's Note:**

> So, my first DEH fic on here, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Updated 9/9/19 because the tenses in this are a pain.

Evan would probably laugh at the irony if he wasn’t too busy trying to remember how to breathe. 

His chest was much too tight, the air knocked from within by the landing and yet to be replaced by lungs too stunned to instinctively inhale and a brain much too dazed to remember how. His thoughts were racing and halted simultaneously, winding and whirring and eddying uselessly like a computer that’s jammed, crashing, frozen, the processors whirring and the blue throbber spinning but the program stuck, no progress made despite all the effort because it’s wrong and broken and a failure and-

Evan’s thoughts were like that. The were busy and reeling yet getting nowhere because they’re stuck on the fact that nearly 9 months after it happened before, he’d again fallen to the pine needle littered floor of a forest. 

He was back on the ground, laying shocked and in pain and with his spine against the unforgiving earth as he stared though wide, teary eyes up at the blurry branches of the beautiful old oak he had moments before been amongst.

Like before, the sun behind them was bright.

Like before, he was squinting a little against it as it filterered through the mottled green that clad them.

Like before, the earth was hard beneath his spine and like before he was lying on something sharp, a stick, probably, poking uncomfortably into his shoulder blade.

His left arm was numb again, the cruel irony continued, from a spot somewhere in the middle of his forearm. He didn’t think he could feel his hand either. That was numb too. Or, well, no, not numb exactly, it definitely hurt, his arm, not his hand, or maybe both, he though, but almost abstractedly, as though his rattled, reeling brain couldn't quite work out how to process the signals his overwhelmed nerves were sending.

Like before, he remembered how he fell. One moment he had been up the tree, perched amongst those broad, stretching branches, looking over the forest, over the world just as he had done the summer before, and just as he had done on one other occasion since. That other time had been a test, a climb just to prove he could. He’d been up the tree though, sat sideways on the branch, his legs dangling over the green of the earth far below as he admired the beauty of the forest and the clear sky above and the outline of a distant city against the blue.

And then, in the peace of the forest, there had been a crack.

And, just like that, he had been falling.

Just like before, he couldn’t remember the landing. Not that he really wanted to; it would have hurt, probably, he reasoned, because it certainly hurt afterwards. He certainly hurt afterwards. He had last time too, that time in more ways than one. There had been the angry numbness in his arm, the memory of the feeling so vivid because it wasn't really a memory at all, and an equally vivid throb in his head and burn in his chest, but there had been an ache in his heart too, a pain not physical but real all the same, one born of sadness and anger and loneliness and the heart-breaking comprehension of what he had tried to do and an even worse heartbreak at the realisation that he’d failed.

Just like before, he could remember falling.

Just like before, there had only been a moment for thought between the flicker of weightlessness before gravity found him and the blackness that came when it brought him to the ground. This time, though, that moment had been filled with a sense of utter panic it had not before contained. Part of that difference, he assumed, is because before, the fall hadn’t exactly been a shock.

The other part of the reason why unlike last time, he fell terrified, his heart in his throat and a scream on his lips and his thoughts racing and panicked, is because this time, he hadn’t wanted to die. There had been a time before when Evan hadn’t cared for his own life, when he had been restless for an end that seemed so far away, when he had known he was a loner and a burden and a waste of air and when that faux knowledge had hurt.

There had been a time when he just wanted it to end.

When he had climbed a tree, the tallest in Ellison State Park, climbed up, and up, and up until the ground below seemed so distant, so very far away. When he had looked down at the grass so far below his sad, scuffed sneakers and hoped it would be enough. When, with his heart calm but his thoughts wrong, he had let go.

He hadn’t let go this time though. The branch had snapped, and then he had been falling and that hadn’t been what he’d wanted at all, and that was perhaps the biggest irony of them all.

Evan, for the first time in longer than he wanted to admit, hadn’t wanted to die.

And so, unlike last time, he fell terrified.

Like before, his memories ended with the vaguest recollection of throwing his arms out as the ground neared in an instinctive attempt to shield his head from being what halted his rapid descent to the hard, unforgiving earth.

Like before, he had woken on the floor what could only have been seconds later, laying awkwardly somewhere between his back and his side with his chest too tight to breathe and his head sore and spinning and a numbness that wasn’t really numbness at all in his broken left arm.

Like before, he hurt.

Like before, he was alone.

Except.

Except, it isn’t like last time. It isn’t the same.

Because unlike last time the grass isn’t scorched and dry and prickly beneath him.

Unlike last time the leaves are fresh and new, just born from their buds, still months from falling.

Unlike last time the birds above are young and fluffy, just flown from their nests, not yet contemplating the journey south for the winter. 

Unlike last time, it isn’t August, it’s end of May, or early June, maybe, he can’t quite remember which, and unlike before he isn’t at work, he’s isn’t at Ellison, he’s at an orchard, one abandoned and overgrown but perfect all the same. One where there are open fields framed with trees. One where he can sit in yellow grass and enjoy the view and watch the clouds race across a perfect blue sky. And one where he isn’t alone.

Because he isn’t alone.

Unlike 9 months ago when he had lay beneath a tree, a throbbing pain in his arm and one worse in his heart, he isn’t alone.

Connor screams his name from above. His terrified, panicked voice cuts through memories that aren’t really memories at all, and through bleary, dazed, unfocused eyes, Evan can just about see him skirting the branches as he descends the tree.

As he comes to get him.

Connor’s swearing under his breath as he climbs, the quiet, frightened words all but lost in the ringing of his ears and Evan wants to simultaneously laugh because that’s just so, so Connor and cry because Connor is there and because Connor cares.

In reality, he does neither because he still can’t work out how to breathe.

His stunned chest heaves uselessly, the movement bringing more pain than air, none of the oxygen he truly needs, and he tries to try again but he still can’t breathe and then time tilts and dances and everything is spinning and the ringing has somehow faded and intensified simultaneously. The tree blurs, then fades, then darkens, and Evan wonders if this is how he dies, watching the person he cares for more than any other climbing down from the tree from which he fell.

And then, suddenly, Connor is calling his name again, and it’s _loud_ and close and Evan opens eyes he doesn’t remember closing to find Connor there, beside him, his eyes wide and terrified. There are soft, soothing words on his lips and then, moments later, Connor’s helping him sit and Evan isn’t sure if that’s a good idea or not but it doesn’t really matter because Connor’s there, because Connor’s beside him. Because he isn’t alone. Connor keeps an arm around his shoulders as they sit, as he keeps him upright, as he holds him tight and cradles him in his arms and tells him in a thick voice that everything’s okay, that he’s okay, that he’s so glad he’s okay.

The tightness breaks like a rubber band, snaps like a branch, and although Evan’s chest still hurts, the pain is no longer quite so suffocating, and suddenly he’s coughing, wheezing, gasping breaths he before couldn’t. Connor holds him upright as he breathes, supports him as he slumps bonelessly against a chest that’s there and firm and not going anywhere, for sure.

Just like before, Evan’s head is throbbing awfully, and the branches above are spinning from both the shock of the fall and the unpleasant collision between his skull and the ground it had ended with. Just like before, his back aches his ribs protest with every breath and the longer he sits there, the more his undeniably broken left arm demands attention.

Just like before, he’s hurting.

But it turns out that doesn’t really matter, because unlike last time, someone had found him.

Connor had found him.

And so, unlike before when he had fallen and yet not really fallen from branches of the tallest oak in Ellison State Park, Evan isn’t alone.

**Author's Note:**

> I might write a second part for this, but as it works well as a one shot, I've marked it as complete. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always cherished!


End file.
